“Not a word. Let’s go.” I strode past him, and when I didn’t hear him right behind me, I turned to tell him to get moving, but Elin was leaning on the bar, giving him a look that dared him to ask questions. He shook his head and followed me.
Sittinginthelittleoffice at the back of the warehouse, I waited for Rojas to continue. “As I said, we were able to get all but one crate of the shrooms. All witnesses were eradicated.”
He shifted in his chair, his face etched with worry as he leaned forward, folding his hands together on top of the desk. “The feds are poking around more and more, Gavriel.”
“I know that. What I don’t know is who it is. Do you have a name?”
“Hillabrand. Barry Hillabrand.” I waited for him to elaborate, and a long, heavy pause hung between us that was only brokenwhen Harley cleared his throat. “He apparently dated your partner. Joel’s daughter, Elin Perkins.”
Again, we waited. When he didn’t say anything, I asked, “Are you implying something?”
“No, just revealing the connection. While he’s been digging and in the middle of this, we haven’t found any recent contact between him, Ms. Perkins, or anyone else we work with. The only contact of his that we haven’t been able to pinpoint is a burner number he gets texts from. There has only been one phone call, and that was a while ago.” He took a deep breath. “Otherwise, calls and text messages from that number stopped. Everything else is accounted for. It’s like he’s working blind now.”
I ran a hand through my hair, the tension building in my temples. Elin . . . A vision of her flashed—a vibrant, reckless woman, far too intelligent for her own good. My Goddess. I shifted in my seat. The thought of her being involved was like a cold fist around my heart. Could she have betrayed me?
"What about the shipment from Marseilles?" I asked, my voice flat, trying to mask the tremor.
Rojas shook his head. “Clean. No sign of a leak. It's unsettling, Gavriel. Hillabrand is thorough. This is . . . unusual."
Before I could respond, my phone went off with my father’s ringtone. Without taking my eyes off Rojas, I answered, bracing myself.
"Gavriel! You incompetent son of a bitch! Where the hell is the shipment that was supposed to arrive from Colombia? Juarez is here demanding answers." His voice boomed through the phone, a raw, furious roar that made Rojas flinch.
"Father, I—" I started, but he cut me off.
“It's gone! Vanished! The whole thing! And you're the one responsible for it! What the hell were you thinking?!" His wordswere a torrent of venomous accusations. I didn’t know anything about a shipment from Colombia.
“Fath—” The line went dead, and I knew he had hung up.
The silence in the room was suddenly deafening. My heart hammered against my ribs. My father's blind rage was frightening, but it was the missing shipment that truly terrified me. It was a perfect storm. The FBI sniffing around, my father’s irrational fury, the unsettling possibility of Elin’s involvement. It all felt connected, tangled together in a web of suspicion I couldn't unravel.
Harley cleared his throat next to me. "We need to find this shipment, Gavriel. And we need to find out what Hillabrand knows." I wasn’t surprised that he had heard my father screaming. Harley’s eyes, usually sharp and calculating, held a flicker of uncertainty. A shipment no one knew about other than my father and Juarez? This was beyond the usual games. This felt . . . personal.
The uneasy feeling in my gut deepened. My father's wrath was a problem, but the FBI breathing down our necks, that was something far more dangerous. There was a missing piece to the puzzle in a dangerous game that could very well cost me everything.
Chapter 25
Bythetimewemade it to one of the playrooms, the industrial-strength cleaner had left my hands raw and stinging, a faint tingle tracing each paper cut from the long night of spreadsheets before. The air was thick with a clash of vanilla, rubbing alcohol, and the telltale peppery undertone of the club’s signature cinnamon wax. Gavriel was grappling, quite literally, with the deep purple chaise lounge at the center of the room. It was a beautiful piece with its Victorian curves and velvet so dark it absorbed light, but it was heavy as hell and about as maneuverable as a small car.
He had wedged himself between the chaise and the mirrored wall, arms straining to pivot the hulking thing without knocking over the pair of suspended swing harnesses that bracketed it on either side. Each time he threw his weight against the frame, something groaned—sometimes the furniture, sometimes him, and sometimes the floorboards. I watched from the doorway, arms folded, lips twitching at the absurdity.
"Remind me again," I called, "why we don't have this stuff cleaned by the staff today?"
He shook his head, a lock of hair falling over his brow. "They all called out sick."
I stepped into the room, a plastic bottle of disinfectant dangling from two fingers, and circled the chaise. "You break the mirror while moving this around, you’re the one who has to clean up the mess.
He smirked, eyes glinting, hard and playful. “If you help, it’ll move twice as fast.”
Part of me wanted to let him struggle. Frankly, it was entertaining watching my pretty boymanhandle the furniture. But another part, the one that had started noticing the new, weirdly endearing bits of Gavriel, gave in with a sigh. I set down the bottle and braced myself against the armrest.
“On three,” I said.
It took all of two seconds to get it in place. He grinned at me, flushed with exertion, and for a second an unfiltered laugh escaped his lips. It softened the lines on his face that usually only deepened when he was mocking someone. It showed a sliver of his vulnerability in a way that made my chest clench a little.
Trying to ignore it, I let out a deep breath. “We should probably wipe down everything, even the stuff that doesn’t look dirty. Last thing we need is a superbug outbreak.”
He watched me, leaning on the back of the chaise, arms folded. “You always this much of a control freak, or does it just come out around me?”
